44. Eörs Szathmáry, "The evolution of replicators," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 335 (2000): 1669–1676.

Appendix B

NCSE's questionnaire

Text in [brackets] is explanatory and was not part of the questionnaire.

Dear [addressee],

I'm writing from the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit organization that works to defend the teaching of evolution in the public schools. We are an affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

An article [or "a book" or "several articles" as appropriate] written [or "co-authored" as appropriate] by you — [citation of publication or publications] — has [or "have" as appropriate] been cited in a "Bibliography of Supplementary Resources for Ohio Science Instruction" prepared by the staff of the Discovery Institute (DI), a Seattle-based public policy organization. According to the DI, the publications cited in this bibliography

represent dissenting viewpoints that challenge one or another aspect of neo-Darwinism (the prevailing theory of evolution taught in biology textbooks), discuss problems that evolutionary theory faces, or suggest important new lines of evidence that biology must consider when explaining origins.

The DI prepared the bibliography to give to the Ohio Board of Education, which is presently being lobbied by several organizations either to weaken the newly-proposed state science standards' coverage of evolution or to include material on "alternative theories" in their coverage of evolution. The DI, for its part, is the institutional home of the so-called intelligent design movement, spearheaded by Phillip Johnson (author of Darwin on Trial) and having William Dembski (author of Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology), Michael Behe (author of Darwin's Black Box), and Jonathan Wells (author of Icons of Evolution) among its Senior Fellows.

We would appreciate your reviewing the information about your work included in the DI's bibliography and answering a few questions. Please feel free either to answer just yes or no, or to expand as you see fit.

1. The DI describes your work as follows:

[The Discovery Institute's summary of the publications, taken from the Bibliography.]

Do you consider this accurate?

2. The DI seeks to promote "intelligent design," which it describes on one of its web sites as follows:

"Intelligent design" refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of design in nature. Through the study and analysis of a system's components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. … In nature, design theorists cite information rich systems like the genetic code, irreducibly complex systems like the bacterial flagellum, and the fine-tuning of the laws of physics as evidence of intelligent design. [See n. 1 above for the source of the description.]

Do you consider your work to provide scientific evidence for intelligent design?

3. Do you consider your work to provide scientific evidence against evolution?

[In questionnaires sent after the Bibliography appeared on the Discovery Institute's web site with the disclaimer, the sentence "Please note that (perhaps having gotten wind of our questionnaire) the DI now disclaims any intention to portray your work either as supportive of intelligent design or as providing evidence against evolution: see http://www.discovery.org/viewDB/index.php3?command=view& id=1127&program=CRSC%20Responses." appeared here. The same information was sent separately to those respondents to whom questionnaires were sent before the Bibliography appeared on the web site.]

4. Do you consider your work to be appropriate for use (e.g., as a supplement to a textbook) in high school biology classes?

5. May we have your permission to publish or otherwise disseminate your responses to this questionnaire?

Thanks very much for your time. We would appreciate hearing from you as soon as possible. If you have any questions about NCSE or this questionnaire, please feel free to get in touch with us.